The Secrets Between Us

By Louise Douglas

Having escaped to the south coast of Sicily to recover from a broken heart, Sarah is immediately drawn to charming and mysterious Alex. He too is looking for a fresh start after the end of his marriage, and Sarah can’t resist Alex’s offer of a new life together.

But when Sarah joins Alex in a tiny Somerset village, something doesn't add up. Alex's beautiful wife Genevieve was adored by all who knew her. And by all accounts, she and Alex had a successful marriage complete with a gorgeous son, Jamie. Why would Genevieve walk out on her perfect life? And why has no one heard from her since she did so?

Genevieve's family and friends think that Alex knows more about her disappearance than he's letting on. But Sarah's fallen in love and just knows Alex couldn't have anything to hide. Or could he?

The unmissable Richard & Judy pick from the bestselling author ofThe House by the Sea. Perfect for fans of Barbara O’Neal, Lucinda Riley and Rachel Hore.

Praise for Louise Douglas

'Louise Douglas achieves the impossible and gets better with every book.' Milly Johnson

'A brilliantly written, gripping, clever, compelling story, that I struggled to put down. The vivid descriptions, the evocative plot and the intrigue that Louise created, which had me constantly asking questions, made it a highly enjoyable, absolute treasure of a read.' Kim Nash on The Scarlet Dress

'Another stunning read from the exceptionally talented Louise Douglas! I love the way in which Louise creates such an atmospheric mystery, building the intrigue and suspense brick by brick. Her writing is always beautiful and multi-layered, her characters warm and relatable and the intriguing nature of the mystery makes this unputdownable.’ Nicola Cornick on The Scarlet Dress

'A tender, heart-breaking, page-turning read'Rachel Hore on The House by the Sea

'The perfect combination of page-turning thriller and deeply emotional family story. Superb’ Nicola Cornick on The House by the Sea

‘Kept me guessing until the last few pages and the explosive ending took my breath away.' C.L. Taylor, author of The Accident on Your Beautiful Lies

‘Beautifully written, chillingly atmospheric and utterly compelling, The Secret by the Lake is Louise Douglas at her brilliant best’ Tammy Cohen, author of The Broken

‘A master of her craft, Louise Douglas ratchets up the tension in this haunting and exquisitely written tale of buried secrets and past tragedy.’ Amanda Jennings, author of Sworn Secret

‘A clammy, atmospheric and suspenseful novel, it builds in tension all the way through to the startling final pages.’ Sunday Express, S Magazine

'A chilling, unputdownable new novel from the bestselling author of The House By The Sea.

'A brilliantly written, gripping, clever, compelling story, that I struggled to put down.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boldwood Books
• Release date: Feb 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781800486287

Louise Douglas

Louise Douglas is an RNA award winner and the bestselling author of several brilliantly reviewed novels. These include the number one bestseller The Lost Notebook, and the The Secrets Between Us which was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. She lives in the West Country.

Book preview

1

I first met Alexander in the walled garden of the Hotel La Fiora in a secluded part of the southern coast of Sicily.

I was swimming in the pool and had been there for a while, half an hour maybe, long enough for the skin on the pads of my fingers to wrinkle. I floated on my back with my arms spread wide. From above I would have looked like a crucifix spinning slowly on the surface of the water. My eyes were closed against the needling brightness of the sun. It was the middle of August and the temperature was well over thirty degrees, and at that time of day, early afternoon, most Italian people were asleep indoors with the shutters pulled to. My sister, May, had gone to the room she shared with her husband, Neil, for a lie-down. She was much fairer than me and struggled in the heat. I was not sleepy. I preferred a swim to a nap and, anyway, I found it best to keep myself occupied, because in quiet moments my mind tended to drift back to Laurie standing at the doorway to our bedroom a week earlier, watching me pack and begging me not to leave him. His hair stood on end. He was holding his glasses by one of the arms, waving them. He wore his faded-to-grey trousers and his feet were bare. My bag was on the bed and I was stuffing it with clothes. Behind me, Laurie had said: ‘Sarah, this isn’t helping. We need to talk about our problems. You can’t just run away.’

I had replied quietly: ‘Watch me.’

The most pressing of our problems, at least as I saw it, was that Laurie had slept with my friend Rosita in that very bed, our bed, not just once but several times. It wasn’t the actual infidelity; it was the fact that Laurie had taken his lover, my friend, into our bed, our most private place, that disturbed me most. I don’t think I’d have minded so much – at least it wouldn’t have hurt so badly – if they’d simply rented an anonymous hotel room and fucked one another stupid there.

After they’d had sex, he must have lain on the bed and watched her dress, seen the private angles of her shoulder blades and elbows as she reached backwards to marry the hooks and eyes of her bra. Laurie was probably already beginning to feel guilty, because that was Laurie’s way. Even so, he took trouble to cover his tracks. After Rosita left, he must have showered and made the bed; patted out the pillows; checked for any stray long dark hairs. He must have plumped the duvet, turned and straightened it, and, later, he let me sleep in the same place where Rosita had lain.

I could not forgive him that.

As I packed, Laurie had pleaded with me. He blamed his infidelity on me – no, not blamed exactly, but he intimated that I had driven him to it. He was distraught, his face distorted with contradictions. ‘You’ve been so distant lately,’ he’d said. ‘I didn’t know how to reach you.’ And I had replied: ‘Believe me, Laurie, this wasn’t the way.’

Rosita was a distraction, a salve, according to him – that was all. She was a symptom of the unhealthy condition of our relationship since we’d lost the baby. He always spoke in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us’ when talking about the stillbirth to show that he saw it as a mutual loss in which equal pain but no blame or responsibility was apportioned.

Sleeping with Rosita was stupid, he had said; it was nothing. It meant nothing. I didn’t remember if I’d said anything out loud, but the words cannoning through my brain making my eyes hurt were: Oh but, Laurie, you did not change the sheets. You took her into the bed where our baby was conceived, that sacred place where we talked to him, and you measured his progress with the palm of your hand every night on my belly. You took her there, to our most private place, and then you let me sleep where she had lain. You betrayed us all. You lied, your body lied and you did not change the sheets.

In the swimming pool in the garden of the Hotel La Fiora, I paddled with my hands a little, to make myself rotate in the sunlight. I was heavy with my thoughts, weighed down by them. I floated but I felt as if I were made of lead.

It was hot and quiet in the hotel gardens. The blinding white concrete of the main building was staggered down the cliff-face so that every bedroom window overlooked the bay. Dark-leaved citrus trees, palms and spiky plants in terracotta urns cast patterned shadows on the grass, and a sprinkler quietly and methodically watered the beds. People dozed on their loungers in the shade and a tiny grey kitten pounced on a spider on the footpath. Even the man who sat behind the bar in the kiosk by the pool was struggling to stay awake, his face cradled low in his hands, his upper eyelashes yearning to meet the lower ones. He flicked away an insect with the back of his hand; yawned. A motorbike drove by on the potholed road beyond.

Most of the hotel guests around the pool were resting on their sunbeds with their eyes closed, or reading airport thrillers. They were older than me; middle-aged Italian and German holidaymakers with short, grey hair and sunglasses, wrinkled chests and hard, round bellies. I dipped underwater and swam a length, and at the far end of the pool I turned. Under the trees, a little boy was climbing out of his trousers, holding on to the side of the sunbed for balance. Beside him, a man in faded Hawaiian shorts and sunglasses was sitting hunched, elbows on splayed knees, blowing into an armband. I hadn’t seen any children at the hotel before; it wasn’t the kind of place for young families. None of the other guests seemed to have noticed him.

I slid beneath the water again and swam a few strokes. When I broke the surface, I wiped my eyes with my hands. There was a splash, and a rush of water, waves. I turned to see the same child doggy-paddling towards me with his chin held high, his upper body made buoyant by the inflated orange armbands. His white-blond hair was cut very short, which made his eyes and ears seem very large and his face too small, and streaks of sun-protection cream on his nose and cheeks glistened in the sunlight. I headed for the steps at the far end. I did not want to share the pool with a child. The man was standing on the second step, hesitating. A phone was ringing, its tone piercing the somnolence of the afternoon. The sleepy people were disturbed. They raised their heads and pushed their sunglasses up their foreheads and frowned at the noise. The man glanced from the child to his phone on the lounger and back again. He caught my eye.

‘Would you watch him for a moment?’

I hesitated; I half-shrugged, half-nodded. What else could I have done? The man gave me the thumbs-up and stepped out of the pool, the wet hairs of his legs black and flat against the skin. I moved towards the child, who was concentrating on his swimming.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hi.’ He looked as displeased by the supervisory arrangements as I was.

I struggled for a straightforward question, and eventually asked: ‘Who taught you to swim?’

‘I don’t need armbands,’ he replied. He had a slight lisp. His two top middle front teeth were missing.

‘Oh.’

‘Mummy said I didn’t need them but my dad makes me wear them.’

The boy looked towards his father, who was standing facing us but leaning into the telephone, listening earnestly.

What’s your name?’ I asked the boy. ‘Jamie.’

‘That’s a nice name. How old are you?’

The child looked at me. His eyes were the same blue colour as the tiny square ceramic tiles that lined the swimming pool. The irises were outlined in a darker colour and there were drops of water on his lashes. His face was delicate and small, babyish, but his expression was almost adult in its seriousness.

‘Six and three quarters.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Good.’

I wondered if my son would have been anything like this boy if he had lived six and three quarter years. He’d have been darker in his colouring, certainly, and less intense. I always imagined a sunny, cherubic child when I thought of my boy as he might have been; bright-eyed with rosy cheeks and sticky fingers squirming solidly in my arms as I hugged and tickled him, demanding kisses.

No, he would not have resembled this child at all.

Jamie, pale and solemn, his legs pedalling beneath the ice-blue water, held my eyes. He said: ‘Watch.’

He put his palms flat on the surface of the pool, dainty little fingers with seashell nails splayed, and moved them slowly as if he were playing the piano, or the guitar. On the floor, the sunlight was reflected in the patterns of the water Jamie choreographed above. It danced on the little tiles, rippled, shimmied and waltzed, and made flowers, spirals and circles. Jamie had turned the bottom of the pool into a kaleidoscope. I watched, as he had told me to, and after a few moments he looked up at me, expectantly, and I realized he was waiting for praise.

‘That’s clever,’ I said. ‘Who showed you how to do that?’

‘Mummy.’

‘Where’s Mummy now? Is she having a rest?’

Jamie shook his head. His eyes were glassy in the light and the pale, freckled skin on his cheeks and nose was slightly sunburned. He gave a little sigh as if he were tired of answering this question, tired of being asked.

‘Mummy’s gone,’ he said, and from the way he said it I knew he did not mean ‘to the shops’ or ‘for a lie-down’. He meant ‘gone for good’.

2

When his phone call was over, Jamie’s father came into the pool. He walked down the steps and pushed off underwater, surfacing beside me. I studied him as if he were a figure in a painting. He had taken off his sunglasses and his eyes were deep set, brown, hidden behind his lashes as he squinted in the light. His hair was long; it reached his shoulders and was almost black. He had not shaved for a few days and his skin was a sallow colour, as if he were recovering from an illness. Something was not as it should have been. As he drew closer to me, I pulled away.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Listen . . .’ he said, and at exactly the same time I said: ‘Anyway . . .’ and we both smiled at our mutual clumsiness.

‘I’m Alexander, Alex,’ he said.

‘Sarah.’

I didn’t know what else to say and I had no inclination to share the pool so I gave a little shrug and I said: ‘I have to get out now.’

He said: ‘OK.’

I was relieved he didn’t try to engage me in conversation. I dreaded being asked friendly questions about myself, and having to lie because the truth would make the other person uncomfortable. Having so much to keep hidden made me feel ashamed; I was contaminated by my situation and I far preferred to be left alone.

I moved away towards the steps. Jamie and his father watched me. When I reached the end of the pool, Alexander sank down under the water.

I climbed out and went to stand on the wooden slatting beneath the poolside shower. I arched back my neck to run the clean water through my hair and felt the sunshine warm on my face. Then I straightened again and opened my eyes and saw him watching. He gazed at me while Jamie splashed around him in the pool. Alexander’s face was expressionless and composed. Flashes of light refracted from the water on his cheeks and chin. I paused, for a moment, with my hands in my hair, to watch him back, and he caught my eye and held it for a moment. Why was he staring? Could he tell something was wrong?

I broke the eye contact and turned away. I wrung the excess water from my hair and wrapped myself in the big yellow hotel towel that I’d left on the fence beside the shower, tucking it in at my chest, and then I picked up the purse that had been hidden beneath it and headed back across the lawn. The grass was prickly against the soles of my feet. The mobile was ringing again on Alexander’s sunbed. As I walked by, I could see the name of the caller illuminated in the window: Rowl. At the side of the lounger a small blue teddy bear lay face down in the grass. I leaned down to pick it up, and make it sit, propped against the pile of clothes, looking out over the swimming pool.

I asked the man in the kiosk for a glass of lemonade and drank it at a table in the shade. A little lizard ran up the wall beside me and stopped dead still at eye level. It was a pretty little thing, the pads of its toes like sequins pressed against the whitewash of the wall. I gazed through the hedging that bordered the sea edge of the garden at the blue, blue sky that canopied the bay and the hazy outline of the coast on the other side of the water. I tried to lose myself in the colours and the distance but was distracted by the movement in the pool, and by the sound of Jamie’s father calling him out.

I passed them on the way back to my lounger. Alexander was rubbing the child’s head with a towel; the boy was whining, complaining that his father was too rough. Jamie stood on one leg, scratching the back of his knee with his toes. He wrapped his skinny little arms about his chest, and shivered. Alexander had his sunglasses on again; I could not see his face, but his back was an arch of muscle and bone and the hair in the hollow of his arms was long and dark. A nasty scar, still gleaming slightly purple at its perimeter, dissected the place beneath his arm just under his lowest rib. The swimming shorts were stuck to his buttocks.

I kept my back to them while I wriggled my sundress over the top of my damp bikini and packed my stuff into my bag. I put on my sunglasses, stepped into my sandals and clipped across the paving stones set in the lawn back through the conservatory doors into the air-conditioned cool of the hotel.

I held my head high and did not look back.

3

In my room, I arranged the pillows at the foot of the bed, and lay on my front with my face resting on my crossed arms. I watched some Italian television, but I must have fallen asleep. When there was a knocking at the door, I didn’t know where I was. For one giddying moment, I thought I was still in the hospital coming round from an anaesthetic and that maybe everything I thought had happened had not. Perhaps when I opened my eyes, there would be a healthy, dark-haired baby swaddled in the cot beside my bed nuzzling his fist and blinking back at me. My heart accelerated at the thought and I felt a squeeze of hope that it might be true and at the same time a rush of panic in case it was not.

I rolled on to my side and opened my eyes and recognized the colour of the paint on the hotel-room wall and the gilt-framed still life of fruit and wine, and I struggled to contain the disappointment, heavy as a boulder inside me.

The knocking came again, a little more loudly.

I rolled off the bed and tried to arrange my face into a normal expression before I opened the door. It was May, my lovely sister, all flushed from her shower and made up beautifully. She smelled of shampoo and baby powder. I saw a flicker of concern cross her face when she saw me, and I smiled, but my lips didn’t feel as if they were in the right place.

‘You’re not ready yet?’ she asked. I looked down at myself. The damp imprint of my bikini was silhouetted on the sundress and I knew my hair must be wild where I’d lain on it. May reached out and smoothed my hair with the palm of her hand. ‘Are you OK, Sarah?’

‘Mmm.’ I nodded brightly. ‘I must’ve dropped off.’

‘You’ve got pillow creases on your cheek.’

‘Sorry.’ I reached up to touch the hot ridges in my skin. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Shhh,’ said May.

She was wearing a floaty, pale-green top over white jeans that were a little on the tight side.

‘You look lovely, May,’ I said. ‘Is it late?’

‘We booked the taxi for eight,’ she said. ‘Remember? So there’s time for a drink in town before the restaurant?’

I remembered.

‘What time is it now?’

‘Quarter to. It’s OK, don’t worry. Neil’s gone down, and if the driver won’t wait we’ll find another. You take your time.’

May walked over to the open window and gazed out at the sunset on the sea. Inside, a mosquito hummed. I reached down to scratch a trio of bites on the back of my left calf, then I opened the wardrobe door and took out a navy maxi dress. In the mirror fastened to the inside of the door, I could see May, reflected, watching me, rubbing her lower lip with the tip of her index finger like she always did when she was worried.

‘You were thinking about the baby again, weren’t you?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘I was dreaming, that’s all.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘No.’

‘You haven’t spoken to Laurie?’

‘No.’

I pulled the damp dress off over my head and folded it over the bed-frame to dry.

‘Did he text you? I thought he might text you. I know you told him to leave you alone but I thought . . .’

I shook my head. ‘No, he didn’t.’

I turned my back while I took off the bikini top and slipped the blue dress over my head.

‘Well, anyway, you’re looking better,’ May said so brightly that I knew the opposite was true. ‘Are you feeling any better?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

‘Sarah . . .’

‘Honestly, I am.’

‘I shouldn’t have left you by yourself in the garden earlier. I knew I should have stayed with you.’

I wriggled the dress down until it hung properly with the straps crossing my back and sitting in the dip in my shoulders.

‘Actually I was glad you left me. I had a nice time by the pool,’ I said. ‘I swam and I sunbathed. I met some English people.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘A man and his little boy.’

I sensed May tense. I knew what she was thinking: that the man and his child had reminded me of what I had lost. I knew her concern was borne entirely of love, but at the same time I hated being the cause of her anxiety. I carried on quickly, as if the obvious parallel had never entered my mind: ‘He’s not that little, the child, he’s nearly seven. I watched him for a few minutes in the pool while his father took a phone call. He’s called Jamie, the boy.’

‘And what about his mum? Did you meet her?’

‘No, she isn’t with them. Jamie said she’d gone away.’

‘Maybe she’s visiting friends or had to work while they’re on holiday,’ May said. ‘Maybe.’

May stepped back to look at me.

‘You’re a bit burnt,’ she said. She picked up her bag, rummaged inside and passed me the jar of expensive after-sun cream she’d bought in the airport duty-free shop. ‘Use this.’

Obediently, I unscrewed the lid and dipped my finger into the lotion. It was cool and sweet-smelling. I smoothed it on to my sun-hot face, concentrating on the half-circles of parched flesh above and beneath my eyes. I tried to smile at May and this time I must have been more successful because she smiled back at me.

‘I shouldn’t have left you by yourself,’ she said softly. ‘I should have looked after you better.’

4

The next days passed slowly. During daylight hours, May and I stayed in the hotel grounds. I would have been happy to spend every moment beneath the trees by the pool, but the heat always became too much for May and she didn’t want to leave me on my own so, every afternoon, when she began to puff and flag, we both went inside.

We ate oily fish, olives and tomato salad in the chill of the air-conditioned dining room and then sat on reclining chairs in the deep dappled shade of the terrace, listening to piped music – an Italian tenor singing love songs that we didn’t understand. We sipped iced water, switched away the flies and talked of this and that, nothing much. A large fan blew warm air towards us, turned its face away, and then returned in a soporific rhythm.

As the afternoons wore on, and the heat became a little less intense, May and I followed a steep, winding footpath cut into the cliff at the back of the hotel. It led down between waist-high walls of sharded grey, volcanic rock with little silver and lavender-coloured plants creeping and growing in its crevices to a private bathing area. A wooden platform stuck out over the green-blue sea that lapped against the rockface. The sea was teeming with busy little fish. I liked to sit on the edge of the platform, with my legs hanging down over the cool water, watching the way the sunlight dazzled the waves, its patterns fragmenting and dancing. I liked the smell of the sea and the feel of the lively air immediately above it. May lay on a towel on the platform, reading her book. I stared at the facing coastline across the bay. Sometimes it was very clear, I could make out trees and buildings; at other times the heat haze over the water obscured it from view.

It was so peaceful, and I didn’t have to talk to anyone or explain anything or even think too much about my situation.

May’s husband, Neil, was a journalist with the Manchester-based news and features agency NWM. He had been sent to Sicily to work on the shoot of a drama that was being filmed there. Neil’s role was to interview the stars, the producer and director and write background features to distribute to the media, generating publicity in advance of the film’s release. It was easy for me to be in Sicily with him and May. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I certainly didn’t want to go home. Home was the house I shared with Laurie. Home wouldmean endless talking, negotiations and explanations and, in Laurie’s terminology, turning the spotlight on the issues that were affecting our relationship. He, I knew, would be suffering from a combination of guilt and frustration that would manifest itself in a stream of tiny accusations towards me, pinpricks of anger disguised as expressions of concern. Because, what he would be thinking was that, if I had let him look after me, if I’d shared my feelings with him after the baby, none of this would have happened.

In all the time I was with Laurie, which was all my adult life, I had been regarded more as his girlfriend than as an individual in my own right. We were Laurie-and-Sarah. He didn’t mean to be demanding or controlling, but there was more of him than there was of me. He was older, cleverer, more knowledgeable and gregarious; I was quieter, shyer, less educated, and I was happy to swim in his wake. I couldn’t remember how I was supposed to look, or be, or even what my voice sounded like when I was on my own, without him. Laurie had always looked after me and looked out for me, but something changed after our son was stillborn. I hadn’t wanted to analyse my feelings as he did; I’d just wanted to be left alone. And he, feeling abandoned, had turned to Rosita.

I was too tired to deal with Laurie. Sicily felt safe. It felt distant. It felt like a bubble, and I would have been happy to stay there for ever.

5

Then suddenly everything changed. The lead in the film Neil was working on collapsed on set and was hospitalized. The official line was that he had suffered heat stroke but Neil suspected it was more serious than that. The actor was flown back to America, the film was put on hold and Neil was free to go back to Manchester.

That meant May and I would have to leave, too. We only had a few days left, and Sicily became even more precious to me. I could not bear the thought of leaving.

On one of our last evenings we decided, for a change, to eat at the hotel. May and I went down together. The terrace was illuminated by fairy lights and candles in the necks of empty wine bottles centred on the tables. Large, pale moths danced in the areas of light and then disappeared. The swimming pool glowed an artificial blue in the black garden and far away across the bay the lights of isolated villas and farms twinkled like stars. I stood for a moment and gazed out. Moonlight trickled on the sea and a small boat bobbed along the coastline, dropping nets by lamplight.

Neil was waiting for us at our table. He stood when he saw us and smiled.

‘Hello, you,’ he said, and he stepped forward to take my sister’s hands. They kissed quietly, and without fuss, and I looked at my feet.

When they drew apart they were still smiling into each other’s eyes like lovers who hadn’t seen one another for years, rather than the twenty minutes or so they had been apart. It wasn’t their fault, but their intimacy humiliated me.

We sat down, scraping the metal feet of the chairs on the paving slabs. Within moments, a waiter was at our table, putting down a chilled glass jug of iced water, a little wicker basket of bread and a bowl of flavoured olives.

‘How did work go?’ I asked Neil. ‘Did you get everything you needed?’

‘More or less.’ He pulled a sardonic expression. May and I exchanged smiles. Neil was always self-deprecating but I knew he was good at his job. There was a big demand for the stories he generated, which weren’t always the kind Laurie approved of. Sometimes there had been friction between the two men when they met at family gatherings or social occasions. I’d tried to stay neutral, but had felt I ought to side with Laurie, out of loyalty. Having dinner with Neil every night in Sicily had made me realize what a gentle, funny person he was. I was glad my sister was married to such a lovely man. I wished I’d realized sooner.

He and May began to talk about something else, some friend of theirs who was having family problems. I tried not to listen to their conversation. I concentrated on watching people come and go inside the hotel. My eyes followed an incoming couple, a frail man wearing a fedora and a younger man – his son, perhaps – who accompanied him. They exchanged a few friendly words with the concierge, picked up their key and walked over to the elevator shaft. As they did so the lift doors slid apart. Out stepped a small boy with large ears. It was the little boy from the pool, Jamie. I hadn’t seen him since that day. He was wearing clean but crumpled trousers and a T-shirt that was rather too big for him. He looked as if he had been woken when he would have rather slept on. Behind was his father, wearing jeans and a baggy shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Alexander was followed by a tall, smart, skull-faced man in a cream linen suit who carried, under his arm, a leather case, about the size of a laptop.

The two men stopped in the foyer. The skull-faced man patted Alexander on the back and they spoke privately for another moment, their heads close together, and it was clear from their faces that their discussion was serious. Jamie sank against his father’s thigh and tugged at his shirt. Eventually, the men pulled apart. Alexander took an envelope from his pocket and gave it to the other man. He opened the envelope, looked inside, shook hands with Alexander, ruffled the top of Jamie’s head, and left.

Alexander watched him go and ran a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted. I could see the child’s mouth moving. He pulled his father’s hand in frustration and the man looked down at him as if he had forgotten he was there.

He checked his watch and had a word with the concierge. She gestured towards the garden, suggesting they ate in the hotel restaurant. I watched as they came through the glass doors. The maître d’ went over to them. He shrugged his shoulders apologetically, turned the palms of both hands towards the sky and raised them. What could he do? All the tables were taken or reserved.

I saw Jamie’s face fall. He sank a little into himself. The poor child was tired and hungry, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him having to wait any longer to eat. It was late enough already.

I glanced at May and Neil. I wanted to ask if they’d mind, but they were still engrossed in one another, so I took matters into my own hands. I stood and crossed the terrace, between the tables and the overhanging lights, to where the man and boy stood. I steadied myself against the back of a chair, cleared my throat to attract their attention and said: ‘There’s room at our table. You could join us, if you like.’

Alexander turned to look at me. I could tell from the slight dilation of his eyes that he remembered me. I pressed my fingers into the cool wood of the chair.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Thank you, but no. We’ll walk along the road. We’ll find a pizzeria.’

‘But I’m hungry now,’ said Jamie.

‘There are plenty of places nearby.’

The maître d’ raised his eyebrows. The closest restaurant was a couple of kilometres away and the roads were unlit, without pavements, and were racetracks for Sicilian young-bloods in the dark.

‘Dad, my legs are tired.’

Alexander glanced at me then over to our table.

‘We couldn’t intrude . . .’

‘It would be no intrusion. It’s just me and my sister and brother-in-law.’

He opened his mouth to raise another objection. ‘It’s up to you,’ I said.

The waiter, tactfully, studied the list attached to his clipboard. The boy swung on his father’s hand and pleaded. He said he was going to die of hunger. He said he didn’t want to walk another step. He said Mummy would have given him something to eat by now. That seemed to be the deciding argument.

‘OK,’ said Alexander. ‘If you’re sure, Sarah.’

I was surprised he remembered my name, but I said yes, I was sure, and took them to the table.

May and Neil looked up and exchanged glances as we approached.

I introduced everyone and explained how I had met Alexander and Jamie at the pool and that there was nowhere else for them to sit. May said, as I had known she would, that of course they should join us. She said it would be lovely to have some company for a change. She made such an effort to make Jamie feel welcome that I knew she was thinking about his missing mother, and I wanted to hug her.

May, Neil and I shifted our chairs a little to make room. The waiter brought more cutlery, bread and water and, after a few moments, we all settled in our new places. I felt a little nervous. I sat up very straight and couldn’t think of anything to say.

Jamie slumped down in his chair and put his thumb in his mouth. He seemed different from the self-assured little boy I’d spoken to in the pool, much younger and more vulnerable. Alexander said: ‘He’s ready for bed. It’s my fault – we’ve driven a long way today and we haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast.’

‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Neil.

‘Inland. I had some business to attend to.’

‘Oh yes?’ May asked, but Alexander didn’t elaborate.

‘You’ve been away for a while,’ I said quietly. ‘I haven’t seen you in the hotel.’

Alexander nodded.

‘Over a week,’ he said. ‘But I’ve done all I can now. We’re here to relax for a couple of days before we fly home.’

‘It’s a beautiful spot,’ said Neil.

‘It is.’

‘I’m hungry,’ Jamie whined.

May smiled fondly at the boy and said she always hated it if she didn’t eat, especially after a long drive, and Jamie frowned.

‘I was bored. Dad was talking to this stupid man for ages,’ he said.

‘That’s normally my prerogative,’ Neil said, ‘talking to stupid men.’

‘And I told him I was hungry,’ said Jamie. May pulled a sympathetic face. ‘But still they kept on talking. And they wouldn’t let me sit with them on the balcony.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘They were drinking beer. And the man was smoking.

My mummy says smoking makes you die.’

‘Eat some bread,’ Alexander said. ‘Here, you can dip it in the oil.’

‘I don’t like oil.’

May smiled.

‘You’re here on your own?’ she asked innocently. Alexander nodded.

The table shook. Jamie was swinging his feet, kicking the table leg.

‘Jamie, stop that,’ said Alexander.

‘Mummy’s gone away,’ Jamie said. ‘She went away and she hasn’t come back.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ May said.

‘She didn’t want to live with Dad any more because he was so mean to her. That’s what my Grandma Ginny says.’

Alexander put his hand on Jamie’s knee. ‘Stop it,’ he said, more sharply.

‘And now Daddy’s always cross and we never have proper dinner and everything’s shit.’

‘Enough.’

Just one word, and Alexander did not raise his voice but he said it with such authority that I caught my breath. There was a silence. Even the insects seemed to go quiet. Jamie stopped kicking and looked up at his father. The man looked down at the boy. They held one another’s gaze. I hoped the child was not going to cry. I noticed Alexander’s fingers were trembling, casting shaky shadows on Jamie’s knees.

‘What shall we have?’ May asked breezily. ‘I fancy a pizza.’

During the meal, Neil and Alexander talked about their work. Neil played down the high-profile aspects of his career to draw out Alexander, who told us he was a stonemason who ran his own business. He shared Neil’s passion for geology and they had a mutual admiration for many of the classical Greek and Roman architects. They discussed the ancient buildings on Ortygia, and Alexander was interested in hearing which had been modified with false façades or other artifices for the film. I tried to engage Jamie, but he made it clear he did not want to talk to me. Still, it gave me pleasure to watch him eat. He wolfed down his pasta and then fell asleep, curled up like a puppy in his chair, orange-coloured sauce smears all over his cheeks and chin. Alexander covered him with his fleece and then he and Neil resumed their conversation.

I listened attentively, but Alexander gave away very little about himself outside his professional life and did not mention the gone-away wife. He didn’t say where he and Jamie had been for the past week or so either, nor did he elaborate on the ‘business’ to which he’d had to attend. The less he said, the more I wanted to know. I had ordered spaghetti alla Norma. The tomato and aubergine sauce was peppery and delicious, but it went cold on my plate because my attention was with Alexander. Waiting staff moved around us like ghosts, bringing food, pouring wine, clearing dishes. The other guests faded into the evening, the murmurs of their conversations dissolving into the night air. It felt as if we were on our own little island at the table. May dabbed her lips with her serviette and undid the button on her trousers. The top of her arm was wide, cream-coloured. I rested my face against her shoulder and felt safe in the talcum and vanilla scent of her. From that pure place I looked across the table to the darkness that was Alexander. He swallowed his wine and sliced his calf’s liver. He ate his meat before his vegetables, enjoying it like a true carnivore. He must have sensed me watching him, because he looked over.

‘What about you, Sarah? What brought you here?’ he asked as he wiped his plate with a piece of bread.

This time, when he said my name out

Reviews for The Secrets Between Us

[mrlloydspandex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book in two days as I couldn't put it down. (Also the chapters were short which makes reading more a lot easier. I'll be honest, I completely judged a book by its cover on receiving this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was it about trust in a relationship, which the title indicates, but it's a gripping read with twists and turns and murder, which I wasn't expecting. I would recommend.

[juniperjungle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As soon as I read the synopsis for The Secrets Between Us I knew it would have to be one of the books I picked for the Transworld Book Group challenge, I hadn't heard of Louise Douglas but this sounded like a great read with plenty of intrigue and tension. I'm pleased to say I certainly wasn't disappointed.

The plot is wonderfully twisty - we see everything from Sarah's point of view, from her first meeting with Alex to her attempts to integrate herself into his life. The plot works really well from this perspective, we as the reader get to form opinions of characters and question their motives and actions in the same way Sarah does. It also means that the mystery of what happened to Genevieve feels very real and very significant, I found myself suspicious of so many characters.

Sarah is a really interesting character, when we first meet her she's just broken up with her partner after experiencing a huge trauma, and this vulnerability stays with her. I spent a lot of the book feeling worried for her, both that she might be in the same sort of harm Genevieve was and what the effect of her new living situation would be on her.

I found this book really gripping, I got completely swept up in. I loved the way it was written, you never get the sense of knowing completely what's going on - you're always waiting for the next twist to pull you off in a new direction. I'll certainly be looking out for more by Louise Douglas in the future.

[autumngirl70 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed the book and liked the story. Was written well and the story had enough twists to keep me reading. Would recommend.

[readingwithtea · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"I didn't like the thought of Genevieve's mother having our boy all to herself. I imagined her dusting him down, metaphorically, and wiping any trace of me from him. I imagined her wrapping him up in Genevieve again like a lamb wrapped in the bloodied fleece of another to disguise its smell."Sarah is running away from personal tragedy and relationship breakdown - and runs headlong into Alexander's life. She eagerly takes on a job as housekeeper and nanny, not quite realising the height of the pedestal on which his presumed-deceased wife was held by the community. Sarah has to win over Genevieve's family, put her own life to rights, and try to figure out what happened to Genevieve along the way.There are strong Jane Eyre homage tones here - Sarah is haunted by Genevieve's ghost metaphorically and a few times believes herself literally haunted; she is hired as a housekeeper/nanny although there's a romantic angle with the father; she comes to the job running away from another existence and runs away from this job too at one point. But Douglas avoids falling into that trap (after all, with Rebecca enjoying such iconic status, why limit yourself to that story) and introduces a few other strands too.Sarah herself is a bit odd; moves across the country and into someone's home at a moment's notice, and there are occasional doubts cast on her sanity - for a while I wondered if she was actually Genevieve and it was going to turn into a bizarre Stockholm Syndrome novel... She's deeply affected by her stillbirth and the breakdown of her marriage, but then takes up a holiday fling quickly and the romance element bubbles on through the novel.The village of Burrington Stoke is quite stifling for Sarah - everyone knew Genevieve and many are suspicious of Alexander, and naturally of Sarah now she has come to fill Genevieve's shoes. Douglas writes a nearly closed-set of characters well, adding even more to Sarah's feelings of unease. While the family house seems a little opulent, on the whole it had the feeling of a real place; ambitious, given the range of settings (Alex's house, the family house, the mine, the school, pub, Claudia's house... we do move around quite a lot).This novel was selected for the Richard & Judy book club and while I don't remember being all that positive about it as I read it, I can sort of understand why, given the various aspects I've discussed above. It suffers a little from falling between genres; it's a thriller/family drama, but starts off as a pretty heady romance and there's still thick romance strands every now and again, there's a definite murder mystery angle although it's not really followed up on... Good holiday reading if you're not really sure what you want, I guess!

[carolinejyoung · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the book although the beginning was a little odd and I'm still not quite sure what was actually meant to have happened when she was seeing and hearing what she thought was Genevieve's ghost. Was it that she was mentally fraught at the time? I enjoyed the ending though.

[elkiedee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sarah is at her most vulnerable when she first meets Jamie and Alexander. She is on holiday with her sister and brother in law, and emotionally raw from the stillbirth of a child and the subsequent breakdown of her marriage, not to mention her husband's infidelity with a friend.The beginning of the story is a bit implausible - Sarah meets Jamie first, who tells her his mummy's gone, and imagines what could have been with her stillborn baby. Then after looking at Alexander in his swimwear, they find themselves with 15 minutes to have sex. This is followed by Alexander offering her a job rather than a relationship, as a carer for Jamie - Sarah accepts and moves across the country - what has she to lose?Even during this weird beginning, though, the book is better than it sounds - I was quickly engaged by Sarah's story and Louise Douglas skilfully builds up her characters and the developing relationships between them. I was very taken with the portrait of Sarah's relationship with Jamie, as an instant rapport is replaced by understandable distrust and then she gradually wins him over.I fell for this book, its characters and storytelling nearly as fast as Sarah falls for Jamie and Alexander. However, this is a suspense novel as much as a love story. Alexander's beautiful, glamorous wife Genevieve has vanished in suspicious circumstances, and he is the prime suspect. Sarah can not believe he is capable of murder, but lots of people think differently, including Genevieve's family who live locally. At this point Douglas ratchets the suspense up.In the acknowledgements Douglas mentions borrowing Gothic themes from classics like Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and the work of the Bronte sisters. Most of the other elements of The Secrets Between Us are quite common in popular fiction too, but they are put together well here. Not even catching sight of a major part of the ending put me off too much - as with many good crime novels, I enjoyed seeing how the story got there as much as any final revelations.This was my first Louise Douglas book though I have been meaning to read her earlier novels for a while after recommendations from others - I am looking forward to them now.Thank you to Transworld for sending me The Secrets Between Us to review as part of their Challenge.

[nicx27 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read and reviewed this book as part of the Transworld Book Group. Sarah is recovering after the stillbirth of her baby, and finding out about her partner's affair with her friend. She goes to Sicily with her sister and brother in law, and meets Alexander, a man to whom she feels a strong emotional pull. Alexander is there with his young son, Jamie, and Sarah immediately takes to both father and son.Back home in England, Alexander invites Sarah to go and live with him, ostensibly as a housekeeper but a relationship soon develops between them. However, the ghost of Alexander's missing wife, Genevieve is a constant presence in their lives, home, and in the tiny village of Burrington Stoke.This is a brilliant book and I loved every minute of it. Louise Douglas has really managed to put across the small village feel of everybody knowing everybody else's business, and the oppressive feeling of moving into the home and life of somebody who was adored by everybody she met. I was kept guessing throughout the whole book as to what had happened to Genevieve, whether Alexander was implicated, whether Sarah was going crazy. It's a book that is full of suspense and for me it definitely fulfils the gothic tag that it has earned itself.The Secrets Between Us is a very accomplished piece of writing. I've read another book by this author, The Love of My Life, which I also loved, but they are quite different books and different styles, and I think she is proving to be a versatile writer.

[hashford_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After the trauma of losing her first baby to stillbirth followed by the discovery that her partner has been having an affair with her best friend and colleague, Sarah goes on holiday to Sicily with her sister and brother in law. There she meets Alexander and his 6 year old son Jamie, and learns that Alexander's wife Genevieve has recently left him. Sarah is immediately smitten with Alexander, and by the end of the holiday she has agreed to go and live with him in a small Somerset village, in the role of housekeeper and nanny to Jamie - much to the concern of her family.When she gets there, Sarah finds all is not quite as she had imagined. The whole village is only too eager to blame Alexander for his wife's disappearance and are judgmental and suspicious about Sarah's arrival on the scene; Genevieve's family are overbearing and openly hostile. Alexander wants her to maintain a front of being just housekeeper and nanny, and Sarah has doubts about whether her really cares for her. As time goes on, Sarah becomes more and more obsessed with Genevieve - what has happened to her? how could she bear to leave her son? does Alexander know more about her disappearance than he is letting on? and why is he so secretive about his past?When the family officially reports Genevieve missing things hot up as the police investigation draws inexorably nearer, and Sarah starts to wonder if she was right to place her trust in Alexander.This book has many strong points. Certainly there is a good story line with enough changes in direction to keep the reader interested, and an interesting range of (mostly) believable characters. The feeling of tension ramps up nicely as the action progresses through the second half of the book.On the down side, the first half of the book seems overly drawn out and slow to progress. The book does seem to hover between love story, ghost story and thriller, and as a result loses focus. In the last 1/4 however, Douglas finally plumps for thriller, and brings it to quite an exciting finish. Definitely worth a read.I have read and reviewed this novel as part of the Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge.

[arkgirl1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a fabulously atmospheric and disturbing read that gradually builds to a gripping conclusion that was incredibly easy to visualise. Sarah and Alex meet on holiday where Sarah felts drawn to this quiet, attractive but troubled man and his young son coping with the departure of Alex's wife. When he offers her a job it provides her with the opportunity to escape from her own grief over betrayals and loss. She leaves friends and family to move to his rural home to act as housekeeper for him and Jamie but is she rushing things!On arrival she very quickly starts to have doubts about whether she has done the right thing as family and friends of Genevieve seek to discover what has happened to her. Could the man she is fallling in love with be a murderer? Why is she not getting in touch with her family? How could she have left Jamie? As Sarah begins to obsess about Genevieve she starts to have have supernatural flashes that become very disturbing and although some of the ideas could be seen as cliches the story really engages you and the writing is so powerful you can ignore that as you become absorbed in Sarah's dilemmas and difficulties.The book has short chapters that help to move the story along and it is incredibly easy to find yourself sitting up late reading thinking one more chapter; thus make sure you start reading it when you haven't got an early start the next morning!!I would thoroughly recommend this book to all those who enjoy psychological thrllers and mysteries; it would make a fabulous TV drama as it is made very visually strong through the writing. You can certainly see the Rebecca/Du Maurier parallels but the added dimensions in this book make for a satisfying twist on that story rather than it being a poor imitation. I read this as part of the Transworld Challenge and loved it.